MEDIA FRENZY; What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate

By RICHARD SIKLOS

Published: October 30, 2005

JOHN F. STREET, the mayor of Philadelphia, perhaps put it best at the announcement of a new corporate headquarters for the Comcast Corporation early this year: ''As Microsoft is to Seattle and Coca-Cola is to Atlanta, Comcast is a symbol of Philadelphia's growth and innovation.'' So imagine if the city of Seattle decided to make Linux a cornerstone of its civic software strategy, or Atlanta sponsored a program that made Snapple the official beverage of its school system.

That's basically what has happened with a plan by Mr. Street to put Philadelphia on the map with Wireless Philadelphia, a new municipal wireless Internet service that, if all goes as planned, would be a City Hall-sanctioned competitor to Comcast. (Although Comcast would probably prefer the analogy of Atlanta making something less palatable -- like carrot juice, the official school drink -- it doesn't think Philadelphia's plan is going to fly.)

Municipal wireless programs have become a hotly debated subject, thanks to the recent news that Philadelphia has selected EarthLink Inc. to build and run its new network and that mighty Google has proposed to play a similar role in San Francisco. The general idea -- one that itself is subject to much expostulation -- is that broadband Internet access is too expensive in the United States, which risks falling behind countries like South Korea and Japan in this area.

Wireless Philadelphia is intended to put the city on the map, both in proving its technological chops and in bridging the digital divide with poorer residents who don't tend to have high-speed Internet services if they have Internet service at all. On the face of it, the fact that the city is moving ahead without Comcast's involvement -- indeed, over Comcast's open derision -- raises a lot of intriguing questions not only about wireless Internet services but also about how much brotherly love has been lost between the nation's largest cable operator and Philadelphia, the fifth-largest city.

It also illustrates the frustration that Brian L. Roberts, the chief executive of Comcast, must feel: his company has signed up more high-speed Internet customers than any other and churns out buckets of cash, yet it has a sagging stock price because the market perceives that any number of unproven new businesses are going to usurp its position. Add Wireless Philadelphia -- brought to you by the people who regulate aspects of his business -- to the list.

Dianah L. Neff, the city's chief information officer and architect of Wireless Philadelphia, said that there was no animosity but certainly a chilly distance between the city and its most famous corporate citizen. For instance, Comcast officials have repeatedly disputed her contention that the private sector (read EarthLink) will foot the entire $10 million to $15 million bill to introduce the service and that the project will cost taxpayers nothing.

Comcast is wrong, she maintains. ''It's not like the $30 million subsidy they got to build their corporate headquarters,'' she said. ''This crying about subsidies is a little disingenuous.''

David L. Cohen, the executive vice president of Comcast, said the core issue was whether the city ought to be involved in any way in a competitive, private-sector marketplace. And, he said, Wireless Philadelphia ''has vast technical complexities that the city has not yet grasped,'' adding that the business plan has mathematical errors and ''assumptions that are just ludicrous.''

Comcast, like Verizon, the other big broadband provider in the city, was not even among the 12 companies that bid for the Philadelphia project. Neither was T-Mobile, which already operates wireless Internet ''hot spots'' in the city as it does elsewhere.

Generally, Mr. Cohen said that he and Mr. Roberts were taking the city's venture in stride. ''I don't think corporately or personally we feel betrayed or insulted or victimized in any way by what the city has done,'' Mr. Cohen said.

It is a tangled tale, and Mr. Cohen plays a central role. He has been something of a corporate, civic and philanthropic rainmaker since joining the company three years ago. A lawyer, he was previously the chief of staff for a former mayor, Edward G. Rendell, for six years. (Mr. Rendell is now governor of Pennsylvania.) Mr. Cohen has also been a personal friend and self-described close adviser to Mr. Street for more than a decade. For a nonscientific idea of his standing in the community, Philadelphia Magazine just named Mr. Cohen the fifth-most-powerful person in town. The mayor came in 10th. Mr. Roberts didn't crack the top 10.

Wireless Philadelphia grew out of Mr. Street's neighborhood revival efforts. Along with such projects as ridding city streets of abandoned cars and cleaning up drug corners, he wanted to give Philadelphia, as the initiative's business plan put it, ''a digital infrastructure for open-air Internet access and to help citizens, businesses, schools and community organizations make effective use of wireless technology to achieve their goals while providing a greater experience for visitors to the city.''